


Where Sky and Water Meet

by QuokkaFoxtrot



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Boundaries, M/M, One Shot, Surfing, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuokkaFoxtrot/pseuds/QuokkaFoxtrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Hermann disappears from the lab for hours. </p>
<p>Newt's always wondered where he goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Sky and Water Meet

**Author's Note:**

> So, this has been sitting finished in my drafts folder for over two weeks. It's un-betaed because we've prioritised Divergent Paths, but I was getting antsy to post it, so here it is.

There are days when the Shatterdome is bustling with people and energy and it feels important that everything is done straight away, quick smart. There are days when everything slows down and people trudge through their work and the smallest mistake can spiral up until it effects everyone in small and irritating ways.

On the former days, Newt's too busy and productive to notice anything except the work that's in front of him. 

On the latter, he watches Hermann.

Hermann's posture is sometimes straight and commanding, and sometimes curved and brittle, and the days when things start to go wrong are when he's at his most hunched. Those are the days he keeps a small radio in his pocket, headphones looping up around his arm and plugged into one ear. The volume is always low, so Newt's never heard what he's listening to, but there always comes a point where he'll stop and stare off intently for a while, then wind up the cord and make his way out of the lab at speed.

Newt's always wondered what was so important that he'd leave in the middle of an equation and come back hours later, relaxed and smelling like the sea.

On one of those days when he's dropped his scalpel twice and contaminated a sample with an unexpected sneeze, he hears Hermann drop his chalk into its tray and bustle out of the room. Newt stares at the unsalvageable mess in front of him and strips off his gloves, grabbing his jacket as he walks out of the lab to follow.

He sees Hermann come out of his quarters down the hall, carrying a large bag over his shoulder, and ducks around a corner before he's seen. He manages to keep from being spotted as he follows Hermann through the halls, but he's pretty sure it's only because Hermann isn't looking for him. 

Standing outside the car pool, he's straining to hear what Hermann's saying to the corporal behind the desk but there's too much going on and he's too far away to make anything out. He hears the tinkle of keys and when he peeks around the corner, Hermann is halfway across the garage. He waits until he can see which car Hermann's aiming for and then ducks over to the desk, trying to keep out of Hermann's line of sight.

"Yeah, hi, I need a car. I didn't book one. Did he say where he was going?" Newt says in a jumbled rush and then he's hurrying the corporal through signing the waiver and the insurance and he's just being handed the keys when he sees Hermann drive past in an old blue Prius. 

He sprints across the garage and throws himself in the car, starting it up and following as quickly as he dares. He's pretty sure he can catch up if he hurries, then he just has to drop back and remember everything movies have taught him over the years.

He spots Hermann after a few minutes and there are enough cars between them that he doesn't think he'll be noticed any time soon. He hangs back, keeping an eye on the car as they go across the bridge and merge onto the highway. It's safe and straight and there's no sign that Hermann knows he's being followed. 

He's been driving for twenty minutes when they go into the tunnel and it finally sinks in that this probably wasn't his best idea ever.

This thing between them is getting comfortable, but it's still so new that he constantly finds himself scrambling to work out what he's done wrong or what he could do _more_ right. He's pretty sure that following Hermann - signing out a _car_ to follow Hermann - falls under the banner of 'what he's done wrong', but it's been months and Hermann has never so much as intimated that he'd be open to telling him. Six years of mysterious disappearances in the middle of the day have built up to a boiling point of overflowing bad decisions and he's in the thick of it and can't seem to make himself stop.

There's a brief period where Newt thinks he's been caught, Hermann's car slowing down for no reason he can see, but then he's speeding up once more and they're wending their way through a forest until they're looping back along the coast.

He slows a lot as the forest opens up to reveal the sky; there's been few cars for miles and he doesn't think it could be more obvious that he's tailing him. He lets Hermann get way ahead of him - there's no way he could miss the car heading down to the large mostly empty parking lot by the beach - and stops at the top of the hill, pulling on the handbrake to watch as Hermann gets out of the car and disappear on the far side of the lot.

When he loses sight of Hermann he continues down the hill, parking as far away from Hermann's car as he can and getting out. Wherever they are was probably popular before K-Day; there's a kiosk and lockers but now the place is mostly deserted.

He looks around in confusion, he can't see where Hermann might have gone; the windows are boarded up and the beach is deserted. He spots a path leading into the forest and walks towards it with a frown, he doesn't know why Hermann would come so far to go for a nature walk with such a big bag. Or why he'd do it so often.

He's at the treeline when he hears a thump behind him and instinctively darts behind a bush. In the distance, there's a man in a wetsuit walking down the beach carrying a surfboard. Newt frowns and looks behind him before looking back at the man in confusion.

It's Hermann.

It's Hermann dropping his bag in the middle of the beach and walking into the waves. It's Hermann paddling out past the breakers and staring out to sea.

Newt stumbles closer, dumbfounded, and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline as he watches Hermann line himself up and paddle with the next incoming wave. Newt's jaw drops as Hermann pushes himself up and stands, riding the wave as though he were born to it. 

The waves aren't the huge monsters that Newt's seen in surfing videos, but they're steep enough that Hermann can catch them and ride them almost to the shore where they break and their force dissipates leaving him to step awkwardly into the shallows. The moment he has his hand back on his board, he's paddling back out to sit and wait for the next perfect swell. 

Newt stands transfixed, mouth hanging open as he stares at Hermann; he's not graceful or majestic, but right now he's powerful and competent and in control. For the next hour and a half he doesn't move, just watches as Hermann catches wave after wave without seeming to tire.

The sun is setting to the west and the light plays golden-green ripples across the surface of the Tathong Channel as Hermann paddles back to shore. Newt watches as he wades out of the surf and turns to stare out to sea, tugging the zipper down on the back of the wetsuit and peeling it down to his waist. 

Newt doesn't know what he's looking at but he gets the impression that Hermann has seen him and is avoiding confrontation. He sighs and makes his way down the beach to Hermann's pile of things and when Hermann looks over his shoulder he holds up a hand in acknowledgement. 

Hermann turns back to the water without responding.

Newt sits on the sand beside Hermann's things waiting until Hermann eventually picks up the board and makes his way back up the beach. When Hermann returns, planting the board off to the side, he silently holds up the towel.

"Didn't think going in the ocean would be something you'd risk," Newt says as Hermann dries himself off, moving slowly.

"I only go in the troughs between attacks," Hermann says distantly. He's wiping away the droplets on his chest but his eyes are locked on the waves still breaking on the shore.

"You're good," Newt says looking up at Hermann who still can't seem to drag his eyes away from the water.

"Yes," Hermann agrees quietly and spreads the towel out and lowers himself to sit. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a thermos, pouring some of the hot liquid into the cup and passing it to Newt before taking a sip from the container.

"This is where you come? Whenever you disappear?" Newt asks and Hermann tilts his head to the side.

"When the conditions are right." Hermann pulls a shirt out of his bag and drapes it over his shoulders. "You followed me," he says, looking at Newt out of the corner of his eye. 

"Uh, yeah. Sorry?" Newt curls his legs up closer to his body and cringes. "I was just-"

"You don't trust me." Hermann looks directly at Newt, disappointment writ in his features.

"What? No! You've been doing this for at least six years and I just wanted to know where you go," Newt says defensively. "I was just going to see what you do and then leave but... I couldn't stop watching you. I didn't expect-"

"To get caught?" Hermann sighs and turns his eye back to the sea. "You could have simply asked."

"That was an option?" Newt asks staring at Hermann and he's fucked up, he knows he's fucked up, but there was only so long temptation could be dangled in front of him before he snatched it up.

"It's always an option," Hermann says and he's focussing on his tea like it holds all the answers. 

"Oh," Newt says and it's a revelation to him; Hermann's always so buttoned up and contained it that he seemed like an impenetrable fortress, even now. "I didn't think you'd tell me."

"And if I hadn't you should have respected that," Hermann says, lips pursed. 

"We've been together four months and you've disappeared six times. You're just gone and you never say a word and- It's not like I thought you were _cheating_ on me. I was just... curious. Like, beyond curious. Eating away at my brain curious." Newt's turned to face Hermann fully, putting his cup down in the sand and staring at him with dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He's pretty sure this is the end and he's also pretty sure he doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes time to rebut.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Hermann says with a shake of his head, eyes fixed on the horizon.

"Satisfaction brought it back?" He tries and he knows that argument doesn't hold water. It's confirmed when Hermann snorts.

"Sometimes I don't know what possessed me to take up with you," Hermann says, screwing the cap back on the thermos and setting it in the sand.

"Me either," Newt says with a sigh, slumping down and waiting for the inevitable. "I wouldn't have had the balls. There were days when I didn't think you even _liked_ me."

Hermann huffs a dry laugh and shakes his head. "There were days when I didn't." The smile slides off his face as he stares out to sea and after long moments he turns to regard Newt seriously. "Do not do this again. It wasn't a secret; if you'd asked I would have brought you."

"I'm sorry. I-" Newt cuts himself off and stares up at Hermann in shock. "You're not breaking up with me?"

"Not this time," Hermann says with a shake of his head. "But this is your only warning. I refuse to continue a relationship where my partner doesn't trust me."

"I trust you. I d- I'm sorry," Newt says quickly and his heart's hammering in his chest, fear and relief warring in his heart. 

"So you should be." Hermann shakes his head and looks over at Newt with a wistful twist of his lips. "Get over here," he says jerking his head. 

"You're not angry with me?" Newt says, staying where he is for the moment, feeling like Hermann's trying to lure him into a trap - that's not really Hermann's style, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd misread a cue.

"I am. You're going to be spending a _lot_ of time making it up to me," Hermann says as he tugs the shirt tighter around his shoulders. "But it's getting chilly and I'm cold."

Newt shuffles over and wraps his arm around Hermann, smiling tentatively as Hermann slides down the sand and rests heavily against him, head pillowed on Newt's chest. "Never would have picked you for a surfer. You're usually so... uptight."

Hermann snorts and swats at Newt's knee before taking his hand and threading their fingers together, relaxing into the embrace with a contented sigh.

"It feels like flying," Hermann says quietly. "Nothing but me and the board and the forces pushing me forward. All I have to do is be in the moment; a million and one calculations - surface tension, hydrodynamic forces, Newton's laws of motion - completed in an instant, _instinctive_ , keeping me upright and moving. It's simple and complex, the perfect marriage of theory and practice."

"Makes sense when you put it like that," Newt murmurs resting his cheek against Hermann's head. "You've been doing this for a while?"

"Since I was fifteen. Family holiday in Spain. Kept it up throughout Uni, stealing away on weekends; Greece, Italy, anywhere there was a chance of a swell." Hermann smiles against Newt's chest, Newt can hear it in his voice as he continues. "I wrote my undergraduate honours thesis on fluid dynamics; the difference between rocky shoals and sandbanks on the formation of a wave. I was _that_ nerd; caught between space and the sea."

"I'm imagining you all knobby kneed on the beach writing furiously in a notebook," Newt says, squeezing his arms tighter around Hermann, feeling weirdly protective of the skinny little nerd in his imagination. "Did you have the hair? All scraggly and sun-bleached? Did you have a _tan_?"

"I did. From the neck up, at least. I was never _loose_ enough to fit in with the _scene_ , as it were, but they let me tag along. The old guard told me stories and let me pick their brains for my work." Hermann huddles in closer to Newt with a shiver; the shadows are getting longer and the light has dimmed to a soft grey haze. "We should get going. I've still got to pack up."

Newt sighs and drops a kiss to the top of Hermann’s head. "Just a little while longer? This is... nice."

"Next time the surf's good, I'll bring you out," Hermann says, relaxing against Newt. "There's another beach further down the coast. It's quieter... _secluded_."

"Secluded, huh?" Newt says as he brushes his nose through Hermann's hair, drier now and smelling of salt. "You looking to get me all sandy?"

"I may be," Hermann says slyly, tilting his head to look up at Newt. "I could borrow a board... Teach you?"

"I don't think it's any secret that I'm not exactly coordinated," Newt says with a twist of his lips. "But if you want to, I'm game."

"I'll keep an ear out for appropriate conditions," Hermann says smiling as Newt leans down and kisses him softly. 

Newt nuzzles his cheek and straightens, rubbing his hand slowly over Hermann's stomach as they watch night settle in over the bay. Warning lights flicker up on the bluff, a lighthouse spinning an endless spotlight around and around for the few ships brave enough to dare the seas these days, and Newt holds tight to Hermann, keeping him warm and safe.

**Author's Note:**

> This all came about because I've been reading a lot about [Pauline Menczer](http://www.worldchampionsofsurfing.com/pauline-menczer-%E2%80%93-biography/), who's a world champion surfer with severe rheumatoid arthritis. She's not the only one, but I can't remember the others' names off hand. 
> 
> Title from Reepicheep's song in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.


End file.
